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 The Project Gutenberg eBook of From beyond
the stars, by Murray Leinster
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you’ll have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: From beyond the stars

Author: Murray Leinster

Release Date: September 13, 2022 [EBook #68982]

Language: English

Original Publication: US: , United States: Standard Magazines,

Inc.,1947.

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM BEYOND

THE STARS ***
FROM BEYOND THE STARS
 By WILL F. JENKINS

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Tommy Driscoll lay on his stomach in the grass outside his father's
laboratory and read his comic books. He was ten years old and
wholly innocent of any idea that Fate or Chance or Destiny might
make use of him to make the comic books come true.
He was clad in grubby shorts, with sandals, and no socks or blouse.
Ants crawled on his legs as he lay on the ground, and he absently
scratched them off. To the adult eye he was merely the son of that
Professor Driscoll who taught advanced physics at Harwell College,
and in summer vacation puttered around with research.
As such, Tommy was inconsiderable from any standpoint except that
of Fate or Chance or Destiny. They had use for him.
He was, however, wholly and triumphantly a normal small boy. As he
scratched thoughtfully and absorbed the pictures in his comic book,
he was Space Captain McGee of the rocket-cruiser Omadhoum,
gloriously defeating—for the fifteenth time since he had acquired the
book—the dastardly scheme of the Dictator of Pluto to enslave the
human race to the green-skinned stalk-eyed denizens of that dark
planet.
A little while since he had been the Star Rover, crimson-cloaked and
crimson-masked and mysteriously endowed with the power to
survive unharmed the frigidity and airlessness of interstellar space.
As the Star Rover, he had triumphantly smashed the attempt of
some very unpleasant Mercurians to wipe out the human race so
that they could emigrate to Earth.
As both splendid figures, at satisfyingly frequent intervals, Tommy
had swung mighty blows at the jaws or midriffs of Mercurians,
green-skinned Plutonians, renegade Earthmen, and others.
But he had just finished reading both comics three times in
succession. He heaved a sigh of comfortable mental repletion and
rolled over, imagining further splendid if formless adventures with
space-ships and ray-guns.
Locusts whirred monotonously in the maple trees of Harwell College
campus. His father's laboratory was a small stone structure off the
Physics Building, and Tommy waited for his father and Professor
Wardle to come out. When they did, he would walk home with them
and possibly acquire an ice-cream cone on the way. With luck he
might wangle another comic.

He heard his father's voice. Talking to Professor Wardle, who was

spending the week-end with them.
"There's the set-up," said his father inside the laboratory. "Absurd,
perhaps, but this Jansky radiation bothers me. I've found out one
rather startling thing about it."
"My dear fellow," Professor Wardle said drily, "if you publish anything
about the Jansky radiation the newspapers will accuse you of
communicating with Mars!"
Tommy knew by his father's tone that he was grinning.
"I've not thought of anything so conservative. Everybody knows that
the Jansky Radiation comes from the direction of the Milky Way and
from beyond the Solar System. It makes a hissing noise in a
sensitive short-wave receiver. No modulation has ever been
detected. But no explanation's been offered either."[1]
Professor Wardle moved, inside the laboratory.
"What's the startling fact you've discovered?" he asked.
"It's got a point source," Tommy Driscoll's father said, and Tommy
could tell he was still grinning. "It comes from one spot. There's a
second-order effect in our atmosphere which has masked it up to
now. I can prove it."
Tommy chewed on a grass stem. As the son of a professor of
physics, he was disillusioned about scientists. They were not like the
scientists of the comic books, who were mostly mad geniuses with
plans to make themselves Emperors of Earth and had to be foiled by
Captain McGee or the Star Rover. Tommy knew pessimistically that
scientists just talk long words. Like his father, now. But Professor
Wardle seemed startled.
"A point source! But confound it, man! That would mean it's
artificial! Not natural! That it was a signal from beyond the stars!
What else could it mean?"
"I'd like to know myself," said Tommy's father ruefully. "I've checked
for interruptions like dots and dashes, and for modulations like our
radio. I've made sure it isn't frequency modulated. The only thing
left is television."
"Therefore the television screen," said Professor Wardle. "I see.
You're trying to analyze it with a scanning system. Hm.... Possible.
But if it is a signal from another Solar System—"
Tommy Driscoll sat up straight, his eyes wide and astonished. His
mouth formed itself into a particularly round O. This, of course, was
the natural occurrence if Fate or Chance or Destiny was to use him
to make the comic books come true. He had been listening with only
a fraction of his ears. To a ten-year-old boy, adults do not often
seem intelligent. Few of them have any interest in Space Captain
McGee or the Star Rover.
But Tommy's father was talking about interplanetary communication!
Of signals from the planets of another sun! From creatures who
might be super-intelligent vegetables like the Wangos the Star Rover
had to fight, or immaterial entities like those misty things that almost
defeated Captain McGee on the Ghost Planet because when he
swung his mighty fist there wasn't anything solid for him to hit.
Tommy's father was talking about things like that!
He got up and gazed in the open door of the small laboratory. He
regarded the rather messy assemblage of equipment on the
workbench with bright-eyed, respectful awe. His father nodded.
"H'llo, Captain," he said to his son. "No hot wires around. Come in.
What's on your mind?"
Tommy's eyes shone.
"Uh—you were talkin' about signals from another planet."
"I see," said his father. "Right up your alley, eh? I hadn't realized the
popular appeal. But if you'd like to listen—"
Tommy fairly quivered with eagerness. His father threw a switch.
There was a tiny hum from a loud-speaker, then silence. Then,
presently, there was a tiny hissing noise. Just a hissing sound.
Nothing else.
"That's it, Captain," his father told Tommy. "That's the noise the
Jansky radiation makes. When we turn this dial we tune it out this
way"—he demonstrated—"and also when we turn the dial that way.
Then we tune it back in." He proved it. "Nobody has ever explained
it, but it comes from outer space. I think it comes from just one
spot."

Professor Wardle, smoking a pipe and sprawled in a chair, nodded

amiably at Tommy.
"Yes, sir," Tommy said, thrilled.
His throat went dry from excitement. His father threw a second
switch. A television screen glowed faintly.
"Now it's transferred to the screen," he told Tommy, "but it's still all
scrambled. Nothing happens. It's quite a job to unscramble a
television signal even when you know all about the transmitter. If
there's a transmitter sending this, I don't know any of its constants."
Over Tommy's head he said to Professor Wardle, "The possible
combinations run ten to the ninth."
Professor Wardle nodded.
"Lines per inch, size of screen, images per second, possible colors."
He grunted. "Then the scanning pattern and possible three
dimensions and so on. You've got several billion possible variations,
all right!"
"Unscramble it, Dad!" said Tommy eagerly. "Please! I want to see
what the people look like who're sending it! Do you think we can lick
them if they get tough?"
"I'm telling you," his father explained, "that I can try several billion
ways to unscramble this supposed signal. Even if it can be done,
only one of them will be right. It's going to take time."
"But, Dad, please try!"
Tommy was filled with infinite excitement. Which, of course, was not
only necessary if the comic books were to be made to come true,
but was wholly normal small boy.
Here was an interstellar signal! He had heard it! Tune the set right
and he would see—maybe something like the giraffe-men who
almost killed Captain McGee on the Planet of Sand! Or the frog men
the Star Rover had to fight when a crippled space liner was forced to
descend on the watery planet Alith!
"I've got to figure out a way to unscramble it, Tommy," his father
said. "I've got to calculate the settings that are most likely to show
some change on the screen. It's rather like breaking a code. It will
take a couple of weeks to compute a series of settings to try one
after the other."
Tommy was unconvinced. He argued. Space Captain McGee's friend
Doc Blandy would simply have whipped out his trusty slide rule and
made the computations in seconds. He would push the slide back
and forth, set the television controls according to his computations,
and say, "On the beam, McGee!" And Space Captain McGee would
gaze into the television screen and see the worm monsters of
Blathok about to chloroform Jenny—Captain McGee's girl friend—to
transfer the brain of a worm-monster into her skull. Her body would
thereafter house an inveterate enemy to the human race, with
specific plans for annihilating it.
Tommy argued. Impassionedly. In the end his father had to resort to
authority to stop his arguing. And then Tommy was tempted to
revert to his former disillusionment about scientists.
But continued belief offered high reward in excitement. So he
believed. Still it was a rebellious small boy who accompanied his
father and Professor Wardle home. Even the expected ice-cream
cone did not console him. He consumed it in an avid gloom. His
father tried to comfort him.
"After all, we're not sure," he told Tommy. "It might not be a signal
at all. Or it might be a signal of a type that would seem simple
enough to the creature who sent it, but hopelessly complicated to
us. They might be so much farther advanced in science. In any case,
it's not a thing to be solved off-hand."
"But you're going to try, aren't you, Dad?" asked Tommy desperately.
"You said it wouldn't do any harm! You said we could lick them!
They couldn't harm Earth!"
"I'll try," his father assured him. "It's simply useless to go it blind.
That's all. I'll have my calculations done in a couple of weeks, and
you can watch while I try the whole business. All right?"
Tommy gulped. He was unable to speak for disappointment. When
one is ten years old, odds of billions to one are negligible, but two
weeks of waiting is eternity. It is exactly the same as never. And this,
too, was not only in the necessary pattern of things if the comic
books were to come true, but it was perfectly natural small boy.

That night Tommy went rebelliously to bed the third time he was
told. He had hung around his father and Professor Wardle, listening
hungrily to every incomprehensible word they said. He was keyed up
to enormous excitement.
He slept only fitfully. The comics had been a make-believe world in
which he believed only with a book in his hand. Now they promised
to become real, and he was filled with a monstrous hunger for the
adventure they promised.
He woke at dawn and his lurid, fitful dreams had made him ripe for
desperate and daring deeds. He slipped into his shorts and sandals
and went downstairs. He gulped a huge glass of milk and stuffed
down an ample slice of cake.
Then he came to a grand and desperate resolution. He slipped out
the back door and trudged across the dew-wet campus to his
father's laboratory.
He wormed unseen into the small building. His heart beat fast. He
was scared, but he was Space Captain McGee and the Star Rover all
rolled into one—in his own mind—and definitely he was ten-year-old
Tommy Driscoll. He remembered, of course, how his father had
turned on the short-wave set and the television screen. No small boy
could forget those items!
He sat down before the controls and threw the two switches with a
grandly negligent gesture that Captain McGee himself could not have
bettered. And then he started, blindly but with infinite confidence, to
unscramble the Jansky Radiation.
He was one-half making believe, and one-half deadly earnest, and
all absolute faith. Naturally. The odds against any one setting of the
controls being the right one to unscramble the Jansky radiation were
several billion to one. But the heroes of comic books always win
against odds like that.
So did Tommy Driscoll. The comic books were fated to come true.
The faintly glowing television screen quite impossibly flickered as he
turned the controls. His heart pounded. He worked on, his eyes
shining and his head far above the clouds out in interstellar space
with Captain McGee and the Star Rover.
Presently, quite impossibly, the screen became a steadily pulsating
rectangle which at its brightest was very bright indeed. He found a
maximum brightness on which he could not improve. He worked
other controls at random.
One made odd streaks appear on the screen. At the peak of
streakiness, Tommy's heart was thumping in his throat. He, Tommy
Driscoll, was about to make contact with the people of another
planet, circling another, distant sun!
Another knob suddenly gathered together the streakings and the
pulsations. They made the vaguest of patterns, and then the fuzziest
of images. His hand shaking uncontrollably, Tommy Driscoll
continued to turn that knob with the slowest possible movements.
He had a flash of clearness, and his heart leaped. Then everything
was fuzzy again. He turned the knob back, his breath coming in
excited pantings.
And then, in total defiance of the laws of Chance, but in strict
obedience to Fate and Destiny, there was abruptly a perfectly clear
picture on the screen. It was not a picture of any place on Earth, but
of somewhere else—a place so alien in every respect that Tommy
would never be able to describe it. And there was a Thing looking
out of the screen at Tommy Driscoll!
His heart did multiple flip-flops and he shook all over. But it shocked
him much less than it would have shocked an adult, because he was
wholly familiar with such apparitions from the comic books.
This Thing looked rather like the people on the planet Zmyg, who
had tried to wall up Captain McGee in a glass pyramid so he would
roast to death when their purple sun rose above the horizon. But
also It looked rather like Mr. Schneider, who mowed the lawns on
Faculty Row. And It grinned at Tommy.
"Hello!" he said in a clear treble, which shook uncontrollably with his
excitement. "I'm Tommy Driscoll of Earth. We're friendly if you're
friendly. We're tough if you're tough. How about it?"
That was an exact quotation from the comic book in which Captain
McGee had made contact with the people of the System of the
Twenty Suns—and later had to fight against swarms of space-ships
which wanted to capture his star maps so they could find Earth and
attack it treacherously, without warning.
The Thing answered Tommy.

It didn't use words, of course. But in the comic books mind-to-mind

communication of alien peoples is common enough. Captain McGee
had done it more than once, and the Star Rover frequently,
wandering more widely than McGee, as he did.
Tommy knew what the Thing was saying, and his piping small-boy
voice answered in his father's laboratory, and he knew that the
Thing understood him, too. The comic books were specifically
coming true.
The Thing spoke respectfully and cordially, though of course it did
not really speak at all. Its people wanted to be friends with Earth. Of
course! They had been watching Earth with radar for centuries, so It
told Tommy jovially. They knew that sooner or later Earthmen would
roam the stars and benevolently rule all the planets of all the suns of
the Galaxy in which Earth is placed. Because, of course, Earth has
uranium and other heavy metals supplying atomic energy, while
other planets are not so fortunate.
Tommy's eyes glowed. But he was extraordinarily composed, in the
heroic calm of children in exciting make-believe.
"Oh, sure!" said Tommy largely, to the Thing of outer space. "We're
going to have a Space Patrol that will make all the people on all the
planets behave. I'm going to be a captain in it. Maybe we'll come
and visit you first of all. How far away are you?"
The Thing could not tell Tommy in mind-to-mind converse. The
thought it had could not be translated into words by Tommy
Driscoll's brain. But the distance was very great, and It explained
quickly that they were able to talk over so vast a chasm as if face to
face because of—
Again Tommy's brain was not able to translate the mental
impressions he received. He could recognize the meanings the Thing
wanted to convey, if the meanings were stored away in his memory.
But naturally, complex technical concepts were simply not in his
vocabulary. The Thing seemed satisfied to fail.
"Have you got space-ships and ray-guns and gravity nullifiers and
mysterious rays?" asked Tommy eagerly. "Our scientists haven't even
made ray-guns yet!"
The Thing said that of course Its race had such things. It added
encouragingly that men would have them soon, of course. With
heavy elements—even copper and iron—it would be easy.
Then an overtone came into the thoughts that crowded into
Tommy's brain from somewhere beyond the stars. Tommy did not
notice the overtone at first. It was a feeling of eagerness and
triumph and of a sneering superiority.
Tommy got just a momentary impression of Its thought of a Space
Patrol subjugating all the Galaxy to Earth. And the barest,
instantaneous flash of hatred because of that thought. But he was
too much excited to notice. He was absorbed in his question about
ray-guns.
It said that they were simple. In fact, It would tell him how to make
one. And It began, simply, to explain—a bit of copper wire, twisted
just so, and a bit of carbon and a morsel of iron.
It urged Tommy to make one immediately. It would guide his hands.
The adjustment of the iron and carbon was delicate.
Tommy was a small boy, and he sturdily controlled his own hands. In
the end the Thing simply told him what to do. He made the
contrivance It suggested, putting the wire and iron and carbon
together on a bit of board, having salvaged them from his father's
supplies.
The result did not look too impressive, to be sure. It did not even
look like a ray pistol, and that may account for what ultimately
happened. Because when it was finished and Tommy regarded it
with a faint and illogical disappointment because it didn't look like
Captain McGee's ray pistol, he suddenly felt the eager triumph in the
Thing which had instructed him.
He glanced at the screen, and the Thing was looking out of it with a
ravening, unguarded hatred in Its expression. To Tommy it abruptly
looked like the leader of those Mercurians who had wanted to wipe
out the human race so they could emigrate to Earth. And suddenly
he realized that It hated him and all of humanity with a terrible,
burning fury.
"Say!" said Tommy Driscoll, his small-boy's hands clenching and his
brows contracting in the best possible imitation of Space Captain
McGee. "This don't look so good!" His voice wabbled suddenly, and
he swallowed. "I'm going to ask my father about this!"

The Thing argued. Plausibly. Flatteringly. But Tommy felt corrosive

hatred behind the ingratiating thoughts. Somehow It reminded him
of the Dictator of Pluto in one of the comic books he had read only
the day before. It asked almost sneeringly if he was afraid.
"Scared, no!" said Tommy in his clear treble, but with the
portentious grimness of McGee. "I'm just cagey! I'll have my father
look this over to see if it's what you say it is!"
Then the Thing raged. Into Tommy's brain there came such
menaces, such threats, that his mind reeled. There was authority
there, too, and at ten years one is accustomed to obey authority.
But there was sudden deep suspicion in Tommy's mind, too, and he
was fortified by all his knowledge of how the Star Rover and Captain
McGee behaved when defying worm monsters and giraffe-men and
immaterial entities and other non-human races.
As the Thing raged at him, trying to overwhelm his will with iterated
and reiterated commands and threats and sneers and mockery and
derision and everything else which should have made Tommy try out
his gadget—as the Thing raged at him, Tommy fought sturdily, but
under a strain which manifested itself as terror, and then panic, and
then as hysterical defiance.
Which, of course, was essential if the comic books were ordained by
Fate and Destiny to come true.
Tommy was white and shaking and terrified when he got home. His
family was at breakfast. He went into the dining room on leaden feet
and with a whipped, scared look on his chalky-white face. It was
nine o'clock. Tommy had slipped away at sunrise. Now he returned,
carrying a seemingly crude and seemingly purposeless object in his
hand. It was made of copper wire with a bit of carbon and a morsel
of iron.
"Where've you been?" demanded his father sternly. He didn't call
Tommy "Captain," which meant that Tommy was in disgrace.
Tommy looked at his father numbly. He shook all over.
"I said, where have you been?" his father repeated. "Your mother
and I have been worried!"
Tommy swallowed. Then, suddenly, he went all to pieces. He burst
into raging tears and flung the contrivance the Thing had described
into the midst of the breakfast table dishes.
"That old Thing!" he sobbed in hysterical fury. "It was in the
television screen and it told me how to make this ray gun! And it—it
told me to turn it on and I was going to when I remembered that
octopus scientist from Centauri who left a note for Captain McGee to
make something, and signed it Doc Blandy, and if he'd made it it
would have blown up the whole Earth!"
His father and mother stared. To have one's small son arrive at the
breakfast table in a state of frenzy is upsetting. It is worse when he
flings odd objects on the table and shatters a flower vase, while
sobbing of impossibilities.
"What—what's this?" asked his father, at once startled and uneasy.
"What are you talking about, son?"
Tommy beat on the table with his fists. He blubbered, but he
babbled with the starkly precise articulation of hysteria. His face was
utterly white. He was beside himself.
"I—tuned in the set in the laboratory!" he cried, in little sobbing
bursts of speech. "I—unscrambled it! And the—Thing looked at
me.... It was a Thing that hated humans! It told me how to make
this and—and—"
Tommy's father went pale, himself. He got up quickly and his chair
fell over backward. He tried to touch Tommy comfortingly, but
Tommy thrust him away.
"Too many comic books," said Tommy's father, frightened. "I'll get
him to the doctor."
 "You old Plutonian, you want to blow up Earth!" Tommy
said, and smashed the television screen.

"I—guessed what It wanted!" panted Tommy, sobbing. "And It knew

what I was thinking and It got mad! I knew It got mad! It laughed
at me and asked me if I was a coward and scared to try the thing I'd
made! And I said, 'You old Mercurian! You old Plutonian! You want to
blow up Earth!' And I went bang. I sma-smashed that t-television
screen and I sm-smashed—"
Then Tommy buried his head in his mother's lap and howled. And his
father and mother looked at each other, white-faced, because they
thought his mind had cracked. Even temporarily it was awful to think
about.
But then Professor Wardle, breakfasting with them, said very softly:
"Great heavens!"

He was looking at the contrivance Tommy had made under the

Thing's instruction. It wasn't quite like anything that anybody on
Earth had ever made before, but a scientist looking at it would see
more than Tommy could have imagined. Professor Wardle saw
aspects that made sense. Then he saw things that he could
understand but could not possibly have devised. And then he saw
the implications.
"L-look!" said Professor Wardle, dry-throated. "It's true! L-look what
he made! Wh-what this thing would do—"
With shaking hands he disconnected a wire so it could not possibly
be turned on by accident. Then he trembled.
Tommy wept himself back to something like composure in his
mother's arms. The antics of his father and Professor Wardle helped,
of course. They babbled at each other over his contrivance. They
looked incredulously at each other. Then they drew diagrams at each
other, talking feverishly.
Then Tommy's father remembered him.
"Captain," said Tommy's father, and there was sweat on his face,
"you did a good day's work, all right, but please don't do it again
without warning me! This—this contrivance of yours isn't a ray pistol.
It's a thing that will start a chain reaction in carbon and iron. If you'd
turned it on, all the carbon and iron within its range would have
started to act like an atomic pile, and it would have spread, and we
couldn't have stopped it. There—wouldn't have been any more
Earth."
Tommy blinked at him, catching his breath from time to time as a
small boy will do after desperate weeping. Then his eyes began to
shine.
"Gee!" said Tommy. "That—that Thing was trying to destroy Earth,
wasn't he? And I stopped him!"
"He was," said Tommy's father in a very queer voice indeed, "and
you did. If a grown-up had been in your place, the trick would have
been different, and it probably would have worked."
Tommy ceased to catch his breath. He glowed.
"I was like Captain McGee!" he said breathlessly.
Tommy's father swallowed. He needed to hold tightly to his self-
control. He, like Professor Wardle, had all the sensations now of a
man who has just realized that his life, and that of his family, and
that of every other human being on Earth, had hung by a hair for
seconds.
But he saw, too, that the deadly small contrivance which had not
annihilated humanity made use of and so revealed exactly the new
principles Earth's scientists needed most urgently to know. It would
mean atomic engines and power and space-ships and ray-guns.
They would mean a Space Patrol to protect Earth against just such
creatures as had been foiled by Tommy Driscoll. And that meant—
"Yes," said Tommy's father gently. "Just like Captain McGee, Tommy.
It appears that the comic books are coming true."

[1] Note: The Jansky Radiation as described, is an actual and so-far-

unexplained phenomenon. It does come from beyond the Solar System
from the general direction of the Milky Way. It does affect sensitive short-
wave receivers. It's cause is as obscure as its reality is certain. K. G.
Jansky, of the Bell Telephone research laboratories, has described his
discovery in the Institute of Radio Engineers Proceedings (I.R.E. Proc.)
Vol. 20, No. 12, 1932, and Vol. 23, No. 10, 1935. It has further been
discussed by G. C. Southworth in Jour. of F.I., Vol. 23, No. 4, April, 1945.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM BEYOND THE
STARS ***

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 CHAPTER VI
PURSUED BY AN ALLIGATOR

Bomba was hurled headlong into the green depths of the river. This
in itself would not have bothered him. He could swim like a fish and
was almost as much at home in the water as on land.
But a thrill of terror passed through him as he realized that not far
away was a group of monsters that could swim faster than he could,
and whose terrible jaws, once clamped on him, could bite him in half.
His mind worked with lightning swiftness. He must remain under
water as long as possible. His instinct for direction told him where
the land lay.
So instead of permitting himself to shoot up to the surface, he
remained under and struck out toward the shore.
For more than a minute he shot ahead at a rapid pace. And only
when it seemed as though his lungs would burst did he at last rise to
the surface.
He shook the water from his eyes and looked behind him. He could
see at least half a dozen caymen tearing at the body of the tapir and
others swimming about greedy for their share.
His only hope lay in the possibility that the brutes would be so busy
fighting each other for a portion of the spoils that they would not
notice him at the distance that he had already attained.
But his chase for the tapir had carried him far out into the stream and
the shore seemed still a terrible distance away.
He summoned up all his resolution and struck out for land, keeping
himself as low in the water as possible and moving with scarcely a
ripple.
For a time it looked as though his hope might be realized. Twice he
looked behind him, and each time the brutes still seemed to be
fighting about the body of the tapir.
But the third time he looked back he saw something that filled him
with consternation.
A huge alligator had detached itself from the group and was making
toward him at full speed. He could see the long, scaly body, the fiery,
red eyes and the hideous jaws with their rows of glistening teeth.
Bomba turned and swam for his life.
As the lad swam he measured the distance to the shore. He knew
that the alligator was coming at a faster pace than his own, but he
hoped that the start he had gained might yet enable him to reach the
shore before those terrible jaws should close on him.
It was a close calculation, but he decided that he had a chance. He
put redoubled power into his strokes and swam as he had never
swum before.
But his heart sank as he noted how steep the bank was at the
nearest point. Had the shore been shelving, he might have been
able to find a footing when the water grew shallower and rush up on
land before the cayman could reach him.
But the bank was three or four feet high and ran straight up and
down. He would have to reach up, grasp the edge and pull himself
up. And he realized only too well that before he could do this the
alligator might have caught him.
In his heart Bomba felt that he was doomed.
But his indomitable spirit refused to give up. He called to his aid all
his reserves of force and swam on. As a last resort he had his knife.
He could stab with it, perhaps hold off for a moment the vicious
rushes of his foe. But as against a knife, of course the alligator would
conquer in the end.
One last glance Bomba cast behind. The cayman had made up
much of the distance between them and was now fearfully close. A
minute more perhaps and then——
Bomba cast one farewell look at the sky and felt for his knife.
But as he looked upward, something brushed across his face. It was
the branch of a tree that hung far out over the water.
A ray of hope cut through the blackness of the boy’s despair. With
the quickness of a cat, he grasped the branch and swung himself up
on it out of the water. Even as he did so, he heard beneath him the
snap of the alligator’s jaws.
But those awful jaws missed the boy by a hair’s breadth. The speed
at which the brute was going carried it several yards farther before it
could turn. And by that time, spurred on by dreadful necessity,
Bomba had climbed farther up on the heavy bough and was out of
reach.
The rage of the baffled man-eater was fearful to witness. It churned
the water into foam and emitted frightful bellowings as it leaped half
out of the water, trying to reach the prey of which it had been
cheated. It gnashed its teeth and its red eyes gleamed with fury.
For a full half hour Bomba lay extended on the branch, feeling with
unspeakable relief and delight the strength come back into his
muscles and vitality creep into his exhausted frame.
The alligator still kept up its watch, and Bomba wondered why. Did it
not know that its quarry had escaped? Then he realized that the
brute was not so stupid after all.
For the alligator is a land as well as a water animal, and though its
prey had baffled it for a while, it knew that the boy, soon or late,
would have to descend the tree. And when Bomba should slide
down the trunk to the ground, his enemy meant to clamber up the
bank and be waiting at the foot of the tree to receive him.
Luckily Bomba’s bow was still slung over his shoulder and his arrows
were at his belt. His immersion had been so sudden that he had not
had time to discard them. They had hindered him in his swimming,
but now he blessed the fact that they were with him.
His position was a difficult one to shoot from, for he would have to
use both hands for his bow and depend on his sense of equilibrium
to keep him secure on the branch. If he should lose his balance, he
would topple into the water, and he shuddered to think what would
happen after that.
He solved his problem in part by wrapping both legs closely around
the bough. Then he fitted an arrow to his string and took careful aim.
He knew that about the only vulnerable part of the alligator was the
eye. An arrow striking anywhere else would simply rebound from the
tough hide without inflicting any material damage.
It was some time before Bomba could get a good view of his target.
The cayman kept swimming about with its head half submerged in
the turbid water.
But at last the alligator lifted its head and glared at the boy. At the
same instant Bomba shot.
The arrow went straight to its mark, pierced the creature’s eye and
penetrated to the brain.
There was an awful bellow and a tremendous thrashing about for a
few moments. Then the alligator slowly sank below the surface of the
river.
Bomba waited for some time, but the body did not reappear. The
arrow had done its work well.
Once fully convinced of this, the boy made his way to the trunk of the
tree and slid down it to the ground.
It was good to feel the earth again beneath his feet. His heart
swelled with gratitude. True, he had been cheated. The alligators
had robbed him of his tapir. But they had not robbed him of his life,
and compared with that fact everything else seemed insignificant.
The sun was near its setting now, and his hunting would have to be
deferred to the next day. Soon the four-footed hunters of the jungle
would themselves be abroad, and it behooved Bomba to make
himself safe for the night.
Ordinarily he would have collected brush and made a fire, trusting to
the flames to keep wild beasts at bay. But now, owing to the possible
presence of the dreaded headhunters in the jungle, he dared do
nothing that would betray his presence to the marauders. He had not
detected any signs of them so far, but a sort of sixth sense told him
that they had not yet returned to their homes above the Giant
Cataract.
He gathered some jaboty eggs which he ate raw, and which, with
some cured meat he had brought with him from the cabin of Pipina,
made a simple but satisfying meal.
Then he cast about for some place in which he could pass the night.
He found it in the center of a dense thorn thicket, into which he
penetrated slowly and with great care, pushing the thorny stalks
aside so that they would not wound his flesh. Once in the center, he
beat down enough of the brush to serve him as a bed, and covered it
with bunches of soft moss that he had gathered near the river’s
edge.
Here he was safe. Even if his scent betrayed him, no wild beast was
likely to venture through the thorns. And if, perchance, some
prowling brute, more daring or hungry than the rest, should try it, the
noise made would awaken the boy at once and he could trust to his
weapons for the rest.
As he lay there, waiting for sleep to come, his thoughts were
tinctured somewhat with bitterness. Why should his life be in
constant peril? Why should he be doomed to be hunted by beast and
reptile?
It was not as though he were a native of the jungle. Then he might
have accepted his lot as the decree of fate and borne whatever
came to him with stolidity, if not with resignation.
But his real place was not there. He was white. He was heir to all the
instincts, traditions and ambitions of his race. He belonged
elsewhere. Then why was he here? Why were his aspirations and
longings doomed to be thwarted? What had he done to deserve
such a fate?
His thoughts turned to Frank Parkhurst. What a difference there was
between their lots! No doubt by this time Frank had reached one of
the cities he had talked about and whose wonders had so deeply
stirred the jungle boy. To-night Frank would be sleeping safely in a
soft bed. He would have abundance of good food. He would be
laughing and talking with others of his kind. And his mother, the
woman with the golden hair, would print a good-night kiss upon his
lips.
But Bomba had no mother near him to kiss him good-night. He had
no friends to talk to, to clap on the shoulder in jovial fashion, as Gillis
had done to Dorn. Monkeys and parrots were his only intimates,
except poor demented Casson and the squaw, Pipina.
As to laughter—when had Bomba last laughed? He could not
remember.
In this melancholy mood he at last fell asleep.
But his depression vanished when he awoke the next morning. His
sleep had been undisturbed. Weariness had departed. The current
of his blood ran swiftly through his young veins. The skies were
azure. It was good to be alive.
And his optimism was increased by the good fortune that for the next
two days attended his hunting. Tapirs, deer, agouti and other game
fell before his arrows, until he had accumulated enough to supply the
cabin for weeks to come.
A good deal of his time was consumed in skinning the animals. He
could not carry them home bodily, as he had no means of
conveyance except his sturdy shoulders. So he cut off the choicest
parts, wrapped them in great leaves tied with bush cord, and on the
third day after he had left the cabin set out on his return.
All this time he had kept a sharp lookout for the headhunters. But
during the whole of the hunting trip he had come across no signs of
them.
He would have felt easier in his mind, however, if he had
occasionally met some of the friendly natives that ordinarily dwelt in
that region. They, too, were conspicuous by their absence. If the
headhunters had really gone, why had not the natives returned to
their usual haunts?
The answer was not far to seek. Those dreaded invaders were
probably still lurking somewhere in the district, and if Bomba had not
crossed their trail, it was simply a bit of good fortune.
A sense of impending calamity grew upon him as he neared his
destination. The burden on his shoulders was heavy, but it was
matched by the burden on his heart.
He tried to throw off his depression, assuring himself that it was due
to weariness. Soon he would reach the cabin, be once again with
Casson and Pipina, and all would be well. So he communed with
himself, though not with much conviction.
The journey back to Pipina’s hut was made in rapid time, the jungle
boy being spurred on by his anxiety.
He turned the bend of the stream from which he could see the hut,
and an exclamation of relief escaped him as he saw that it was still
standing. He had half-feared that he would find it burned or
demolished.
But it was there, and everything about it seemed placid and serene.
No puma this time ranged before the door. It seemed an abode of
peace.
“Bomba was a fool,” he told himself, as he hurried forward.
He gave the loud halloo with which he was accustomed to announce
his coming. Usually this brought either Casson or Pipina to the door
at once.
This time his call evoked no answer. No figure appeared at the
doorway, nor could he hear any stirring within.
He called again, this time in louder tones. But again there came no
answer.
His uneasiness returning at this unusual circumstance, he hastily ran
up to the hut.
The door stood open and a hurried glance into the outer room
showed that it was empty.
He rushed in and examined the farther room. No one was there.
“Casson!” he called in a frenzy of anxiety. “Casson! Pipina! Where
are you?”
His only answer was the echo of his voice.
Casson was gone! Pipina was gone!
 CHAPTER VII
CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY

For a moment Bomba stood stupefied with dread. Then he ran out
into the open.
He beat the bushes about the hut. He dashed down to the edge of
the ygapo, his quick eye scanning the expanse for some sign of the
passing of Casson and Pipina.
Nothing anywhere. No footprints, no trampling of the bushes, no clue
to guide him in a search for the missing ones.
To all appearances no one had trodden that deserted spot since
Bomba had returned from his journey to the Moving Mountain.
Yet Casson was gone. Pipina was gone.
Bomba retraced his steps to the hut, his mind in a ferment of
bewilderment and grief.
Indians! Only Indians could traverse the jungle with the silence and
stealth of ghosts, leaving no trace behind.
“Nascanora!” The word hissed between the boy’s clenched teeth.
“This is your work! If you have killed Casson, Bomba will not rest
until he has found your heart with an arrow, a bullet, or a knife!”
The boy reëntered the empty hut with a sharp pain stabbing at his
heart. He would search the cabin more minutely now for some sign,
some clue, to the whereabouts of the absent ones. And if he could
not find it there, he would call into play all his skill in woodcraft to find
and follow their trail. For trail there must be somewhere. They could
not have vanished into thin air.
Inch by inch, he scrutinized the walls, the floor, even every crevice of
the crude and meagre furniture, thinking he might find some
message from Casson. It was almost a forlorn hope, but it was all
that he had at the moment.
He had nearly abandoned even this hope, however, when he
discovered a faint scrawl on the wall in the darkest corner of the hut.
He bent closer, and his brows drew together in a scowl as he tried to
decipher the writing.
Then suddenly a hoarse cry of rage escaped him. His eyes blazed in
the shadowy hut like those of an angry puma.
For this was what he read:
“Nascanora is taking away Casson, Pipina, Hondura to
camp near Giant Cataract. Come. Help.”
So the headhunters had achieved their end at last! They had
captured the helpless old man whom their superstition had led them
to regard as a Man of Evil, a magician whose spells had brought
blight on their crops and sickness to their people. Poor old Casson,
whose one desire was to help rather than hurt!
They would torture him. They would make him a sacrifice to their
gods. And when flesh and blood could no longer stand their
torments, they would kill him and place his head on the wigwam of
their chief.
Bomba’s rage was terrific, and it would have fared ill with the savage
chief if at that moment he had come within reach of the boy’s knife.
The boy read the scrawl again. So they had taken Hondura too, the
friendly chief of the Araos tribe, the father of the pretty little girl,
Pirah, who had once saved Bomba’s life!
Why had Nascanora made Hondura captive with Casson and the
squaw? Was it because Hondura and his tribe had been on friendly
terms with Bomba and the old naturalist? Or did Nascanora think
that the Araos tribe was becoming too powerful, and had he hoped
by depriving them of their chief to render his people helpless and
throw confusion and panic into their hearts?
But that problem could be left till later for solution. The pressing thing
was to plan for the rescue of the captives before they were so far
away that their recovery would be impossible.
When his first fury had exhausted itself, Bomba left the writing on the
wall and sat down on the threshold of the hut, the better to think out
a course of action.
“Near the Giant Cataract” said that rude scrawl penciled by poor
Casson, when the attention of his captors was momentarily diverted.
Bomba had no clear idea as to how far away that was or what
direction would have to be followed to reach it. But from what he had
gathered from the natives from time to time, the place was at a great
distance, and he knew that a long and arduous journey lay before
him.
That is, if he had to go that far in order to catch up with the raiding
party. There was nothing in the hut on which he could base any
judgment as to the time the capture had taken place.
It might have occurred the very day that he had left on his hunting
trip. In that case, they would have had a three days’ start of him. Or
again it might have happened yesterday. In that event, his task of
overtaking them would be that much easier.
No matter how much they wanted to hurry, no large party could
proceed very fast, encumbered as they were with prisoners and
probably laden with spoils. Bomba could cover as much ground in
one day as they could in two or possibly in three. So he had little
doubt of his ability to overtake them before they could get very far.
What he would do if he should come up with them, he did not pause
to consider. No plan formed now would be of any service. He must
be guided by circumstances as they developed. But he had enough
confidence in his own quick wit to believe that he would be able to
shape such circumstances to meet his ends.
But time pressed, and he could spend no more time in reflection. He
rose to his feet and secured some cured meat from Pipina’s stores to
feed him on the way. He would have no time to spend in hunting
food when there were human enemies requiring his attention.
He tested his bow, put a new string on it, and replenished his store of
arrows. His revolver and machete were already at his belt. He took
one more look about the cabin to make sure he had overlooked
nothing and plunged into the jungle.
Like a hound when trying to pick up a trail, he described a long
circle, scanning the ground narrowly for every sign that might
indicate the direction in which the party had gone.
For a long time his search was unsuccessful. At last his eyes
brightened, for they rested on a little strip of cloth fluttering on a thorn
bush. He examined it carefully and recognized it as a strip torn from
a loose dress such as the Indian women wear. Probably it was torn
from Pipina’s garment.
This was something, but not enough. He must find a second strip, if
possible, and the line formed by the two would give him the direction
in which the party were traveling.
Before long his eager search was rewarded. Now he could shape his
course, and he hurried forward with redoubled speed.
The bits of cloth also told the jungle boy another story. The fact that
they had been torn off at all showed that the savages had been
hurrying their captives along at great speed, and so roughly that they
took no care to avoid the thorn bushes that tore the clothes and
probably the skin.
Bomba’s heart burned within him as he pictured poor, weak Casson
driven along, perhaps flogged to make him hasten. How long could
he endure such treatment in his feeble condition? Perhaps even now
he had succumbed to the hardships of the journey! Bomba gritted his
teeth and his eyes flamed with fury.
He had not gone far when his jungle instinct warned him of danger in
the immediate vicinity. Motions as vague as shadows, faint rustlings
that could not have been detected by an untrained ear, told him that
something or someone was trailing him, keeping step with him,
moving as swiftly and silently as he. From being the hunter, he had
become the hunted.
When Bomba paused the slight rustlings stopped. When he moved
on they were resumed.
Still he continued on his way. Whether his pursuer were beast or
human he could not tell. But the jungle lad knew that, whether beast
or human, the surest way to provoke attack was to betray a
knowledge of his danger.
To keep on would be at least to delay attack and perhaps derange
the plans of his pursuer. But when the attack at last came—if it
should come—he would be ready.
Suddenly he became conscious that he was encircled. The faint
sound, which had been behind him, was echoed now on the right
and the left and in the front. His enemies, whoever they were, were
closing in upon him.
There was nothing that his eyes could tell him. Not a leaf stirred nor
was there any movement in the brush. There was only that ghostly
rustling that to Bomba’s sensitive ears was as plainly perceptible as
the rumbling of distant thunder.
Then something shaped itself, vague and dim behind a thicket. Like
a beast at bay, Bomba crouched, pulled his bow from his shoulder
and plucked an arrow from his pouch.
Before he could fit the arrow to the string a hideous chorus of shouts
rent the air, and like magic the jungle was filled with men, men with
the ferocious faces of demons, who rushed upon him, shouting and
brandishing their sharp, murderous knives above their heads.
Bomba had no time to turn and flee. He dropped his bow, whipped
out his machete and backed toward a tree, only to feel himself
seized from behind and borne helpless to the ground.
A score of natives bent above him, their faces menacing, their knives
pointed at his throat.
“Hondura?” grunted one of them. “Where is he?”
A light dawned upon Bomba. These were braves of the Araos tribe
seeking their leader. They blamed him, Bomba, for the
disappearance of their chief—Bomba, who at that very moment was
on his way to rescue that chief from captivity.
“Let me up and I will tell you,” he said, refusing to quail before the
fierce eyes directed upon him.
They hesitated, evidently suspicious of some trick. But finally the
leader, a strapping native named Lodo, whom Bomba remembered
having seen on his recent visit to their village, ordered that a close
ring be formed about the lad. Then he ordered him to stand up.
Bomba did so, and Lodo advanced toward him, knife in hand, his
gaze lowering.
“Where is Hondura, our chief?” he demanded. “You hide him.”
“The bad chief, Nascanora, take good chief, Hondura, prisoner,”
Bomba replied, his brown eyes holding the little, shifting ones of
Lodo with great earnestness. “He take, too, my friend Casson and
Pipina, the squaw. Come with me to the hut, and I will show you the
writing on the wall.”
It was plain that the Indians considered this a subterfuge or a trap,
and there was considerable parleying before Lodo finally announced
that they would take him to the hut.
“But you fool us, Bomba,” threatened Lodo with a suggestive twist of
his knife, “and I cut out your heart—so!”
 CHAPTER VIII
THE MAN WITH THE SPLIT NOSE

Bomba raged within himself at this enforced delay in his journey. But
resistance against such odds would be nothing less than suicide.
And apprehension was in his heart as he moved along with his
captors. He was by no means sure that he would be able to prove to
the natives that he spoke the truth concerning their chief.
After all, the only proof he had was that writing on the wall, and if
they thought that he was trying to deceive them they might regard
the writing as part of his plan. There was no likelihood that any of
them would be able to decipher it for themselves.
So it was with no great confidence as to the ultimate outcome that he
made his way back to the cabin, surrounded by the lowering bucks
of the Araos tribe and feeling the suspicious gaze of Lodo boring into
his back.
They traveled swiftly, as the way was familiar, and it was not long
before they reached the deserted hut. Bomba led them into it and
pointed out the faint scrawl on the wall.
Lodo could make nothing of it, and looked from the writing back to
Bomba with a fierce scowl and a tightened grasp upon his knife.
“You read,” he said, and the cruel point of the knife pricked Bomba’s
bare shoulder and brought a tiny trickle of blood. “No fool Lodo.”
Bomba read the words twice under Lodo’s direction, and still the
giant was unconvinced. The other bucks patterned their conduct on
his and crowded around Bomba, muttering and growling like beasts
of the jungle about to close in on a helpless prey.
“You lie!” The point of Lodo’s knife pricked again at Bomba’s
shoulder, deeper this time, and a red stream followed it.
Still Bomba did not flinch, giving the sullen Indian look for look
without a sign of fear.
“You lie!” again shouted Lodo, working himself into a frenzy of fury.
“Braves see Hondura near the hut of Casson, the white medicine
man. Hondura not come back to his people. Bomba hide Hondura.
Bomba must die!”
His knife was upraised in menace. A shudder of anguish passed
through Bomba, but he said no word. A dozen hands reached out to
seize him, a dozen knives were pointed at his throat——
“Wait!” A guttural voice came from the doorway of the hut, and Grico,
he of the one eye and the split nose, forced his way through the ring
of angry Indians. “Let me see writing on the wall. I tell you if Bomba
lie.”
Grico was a native of tremendous physical strength. He had for a
while lived in one of the towns on the coast, and as a boy had been
taken under the care of an English missionary school. Here he had
been taught the rudiments of education. But the call of his jungle
blood had proved too strong to be resisted, and he had run away
and thrown in his lot with the Araos tribe.
There, when he reached manhood, he became known as the
swiftest runner and the greatest hunter of them all. He had lost one
eye and acquired his split nose in a battle with jaguars, in which he
had shown almost superhuman strength and courage.
He had become therefore a person of great influence in the tribe, not
only because of his prowess as a hunter but also because of his
knowledge of the world outside and his education, which gave him
great superiority over his ignorant and simple-minded mates. And he
was cunning enough to make this count for all that it was worth and
considerably more, considering that, after all, he had gained only the
merest smattering of learning.
Bomba knew something of the history of Grico, and hope sprang in
him anew as the giant caboclo made his way through the sullen
group and peered at that faint scrawl upon the wall. Slowly he read
the words aloud:
 “Nascanora is taking away Casson, Pipina, Hondura to
camp near Giant Cataract. Come. Help.”
Then he turned to the Indians, his one eye gleaming at them in a
contemptuous manner.
“Bomba speaks truth,” he said. “Those are the words he said, and
that is the writing on the wall. Take the point of your knife away,
Lodo. The boy is right. Chief Hondura has been taken away by the
wicked Nascanora. We will capture Nascanora and tie him to a tree
and pile the brushwood up about his knees and with flint and stone
make red flames that will lick at his flesh and bones. Ayah! Ayah!”
The cry of vengeance, indescribably weird and savage, was taken
up by the Indians and filled the jungle with a long wailing shriek that
chilled the blood of Bomba as he thought of what might have
happened to him had it not been for Grico’s timely appearance.
Once their enmity was turned from him, the Indians became as
friendly and pleasant as they had been savage a few moments
before.
One of them found a bit of native cloth in the hut and bound it about
the wound in Bomba’s shoulder. Then they squatted outside the hut
to hold a council and decide upon plans for the rescue of their chief.
While the Indians talked in their guttural language, sometimes sitting
for many minutes of silence between their laconic sentences, Bomba
fretted and fumed, eager to be once more on the trail of the
headhunters.
However, he could not risk offending Lodo and his braves, who might
prove valuable helpers in his quest, by going off too abruptly. So he
waited, answering as best he could the questions that Lodo and
Grico put to him from time to time.
He told them of the previous visits of the headhunters to Casson’s
cabin, how he had beaten off their attacks, how he had wounded
Nascanora himself, how he had captured Ruspak, their medicine
man, and how in the jungle he had overcome the braves of Tocarora.
“I think there are two bands of headhunters,” he said, when asked for
his opinion. “Nascanora is at the head of one, and Tocarora, his half-
brother, leads the other. They will join each other somewhere in the
jungle. Then Nascanora will be strong enough to fight the Araos if
they come looking for their chief.”
“But they did not think of Grico!” said he of the split nose, his one eye
gleaming balefully. “Grico will get other braves who will fight with the
Araos to get back Hondura. Hondura has been good to Grico. Grico
will show that he is grateful.”
Bomba knew that this was no idle boast. Grico’s courage was so well
established that he would have no trouble in rallying many bucks of
other tribes under his leadership. If he could do this, the Araos and
their auxiliaries would prove formidable enemies, even to the
redoubtable headhunters.
But Bomba knew that this would take time and be the subject of
innumerable powwows before the avengers would get fairly started.
And with the knowledge he had of Casson’s danger he was in no
mood for delay. He must go on. They could follow later.
He knew the risks he ran in going alone. He would be only one
against the hordes of Nascanora. But his wit had served him so often
where mere force would have failed that he was willing and eager to
trust to it again.
So when a favorable opportunity presented, he broached his plan to
his new-found allies.
“Bomba will go first and try to find the trail while Lodo and Grico are
getting their braves together,” he said. “If Bomba finds them near by,
he will come back and tell you, so that you may come and fight them.
If he finds they are far off, he will leave a trail of his own so that you
may move fast through the jungle. Does Bomba speak well?”
Lodo and Grico consulted.
“Bomba speaks well—” Lodo was beginning when there was a
sudden commotion in the surrounding jungle. A moment later a
strange company broke into the clearing.
Bomba saw that they were squaws of the Araos tribe. The faces of
the women, usually so stolid, wore the ghastly gray of terror. They
had come from afar and swiftly, for their flesh was torn by thorns and
spiked vines and their breath came in gasps.
One of them, who was the squaw of Lodo and seemed to be the
leader of the women, came over to her husband and stood before
him, striving to regain breath enough to speak.
“What is it, woman?” cried Lodo. “What has happened?”
“The maloca,” she got out at last. “Bucks come. They burn our
houses. They carry off the women. They take the children. All gone.”
 CHAPTER IX
THE SAVAGE RAIDERS

The news fell with stunning effect upon the assembled bucks already
wrought up to a high pitch of fury because of the capture of their
chief. There was a hubbub of exclamations of grief and rage.
“Pirah gone, too,” declared the woman, with a sweeping gesture of
her hands.
“Pirah!” This was Bomba’s voice, harsh and unlike his own, as he
pushed through the group of scowling Indians. “You say Pirah taken
too? Who were the bucks?”
“No know.” The squaw shook her head. She had recovered her
breath now, and, with the other women, was regaining her habitual
stolid look. “They come—many come.” She extended her ten fingers,
closing and opening her hands several times to indicate an indefinite
number. “Take women. Take children. We run away. Hide in bushes
till they go. Then we come here.”
Her story roused the Indians even more than the loss of their chief.
That their native village, or maloca, should have been invaded, their
women and children carried off, was a crime that by their code
merited only one punishment, and that torture and death.
The powwow broke up at once and the braves hurried away to their
maloca, taking their women with them.
Bomba accompanied them for some distance, and then took leave of
them, promising to pick up the trail at once and coöperate with them
in every way possible in the rescue of their chief and kidnapped
families, as well as of Casson and Pipina.
Then he left them to return with heavy and angry hearts to their
despoiled maloca while he again sought out the path he had been